In Sleep... Poem by Daniel Brick

(I)

How many thousands...
Are at this hour asleep! O gentle sleep,
Nature's soft nurse, how have I frighted thee
That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down
And steep my senses in forgetfulness?
Shakespeare

In sleep I am always alone.
No bed is large enough to contain
all my tossings. I awake again
and again in the night, and feel
darkness as a weight upon me.
Even when I push against it, it
only presses harder and threatens
to take my breath away. I am scared
to see my exhaled breath dissolving
into mere air. Something alien and
malign tries to exhaust my reserves
of breath and render me hopeless.
Or so it seems. Perhaps it is my self,
contrary and confused, that exacts
these hostile measures... Only
near dawn do I sink into a vexed sleep
that mocks the repose I long for.
Oh, in what detour of darkness
do my sweet dreams reside?

(II)

Oh Sleep! It is a gentle thing
Beloved from pole to pole!
To Mary Queen the praise be given!
She sent the gentle sleep from Heaven
That slid into my soul.
Coleridge

In sleep, I am always
with others. Blessed spirits hover over
my sleeping self, they quietly sing
music only pure souls hear as they lie
motionless in the currents of night.
Friends appear in dreams repeating
their kind gestures from daylight.
My mind, counting all blessings,
never tires of adding another and
yet another. But eventually
that beautiful moment arrives
when body and mind surrender their
consciousness and soul and heart
take over and purify awareness
of what is and what will be.
In this deepest place of sleep
a Mystery awakes and spreads
its wonder through all sleeping beings.

Imagine Homer's asphodel garden
released from the confines of Hades.
Imagine yourself holding Aeneas's golden bough
as you ascend with the other souls
in a mad rush into the Light. Imagine
Persephone and her maidens flying
through the Dark Lord's realm, and
inviting you to land with them
in her loving mother's fields of wheat
and barley...

Imagine any paradise that fulfills
the summons of your soul, and it will be
as real as the sources of Light in the blazing sun
and Apollo's shining being... Near dawn,
all these images, however real they seem
at night, will vanish in cascades of falling
light, and the ascending light will raise
those real things we treasure and hold dear
in our bodies and minds, in our souls and hearts.